The Russian President-elect has vowed to investigate all reports of human rights abuses in Chechnya and promised severe punishment for those found guilty. Vladimir Putin's office released the statement as Mr Putin prepared to meet a delegation from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which is to travel to Chechnya on Friday.
The OSCE, the continent's biggest human rights and security body, has indicated that it wants to return to Chechnya. During talks in Moscow, the head of the OSCE told Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov that the organisation was ready to return to the region as soon as the security situation allowed. Benita Ferrero-Waldner, said that this was due to concerns over reports of human rights abuses in Chechnya. Ms Ferrero-Waldner, who is also the Austrian Foreign Minister, said that she expected the OSCE, who withdrew from the region in 1998, to return to its base in the village of Znamenskoye, in northern Chechnya.
Mr Ivanov welcomed the move, saying that the OSCE has played a key role in resolving conflicts in several hot-spots in the North Caucasus, the Balkans and Central Asia. Russian troops and rebels are reported to have renewed hostilities in the breakaway republic. Angered by overnight rebel attacks on police checkpoints, Russian forces rained shells and rockets on guerrilla positions in Chechnya's southern mountains. Tass, the Russian new agency, has reported that the military have said that it will have to make full use of its overwhelming firepower to hit at the rebels before spring foliage starts providing the rebels with cover.
